


like real people do

by softbeoms



Series: gifts [2]
Category: TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Greek Religion & Lore Fusion, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Comfort No Hurt, Communication, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, M/M, Married Life, Soft Choi Beomgyu, Soft Choi Yeonjun, beomgyu is hades, brief mention of taebin, more cohesive warnings in authors note, soobin is once again the advice giver, sorry soobin, this is nothing but Tender, tw: mentions of war, yeonjun is persephone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29007117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softbeoms/pseuds/softbeoms
Summary: The breeze that tore through him upon his re-entry into the Underworld was as bracing as it was welcoming. Yeonjun barely shivered. He was used to it by now, found it comforting after the scorch of the summer months. He closed his eyes, inhaled deep. He could hear Cerberus in the distance, howling to signal his arrival.When he opened his eyes again, Beomgyu was there. He was smiling.“Welcome home, Persephone,” he said, and Yeonjun went to him. His moon, his heart. The very bedrock of his soul.They met in the middle. Yeonjun put his arms around Beomgyu’s waist and shoved his face into his husband’s neck. He took his time to breathe him in.Bergamot oranges, old roses, the sharp starch of fresh gauze.Yeonjun sighed.“I’m home.”(Or: Yeonjun and Beomgyu navigate married life.)
Relationships: Choi Beomgyu/Choi Yeonjun
Series: gifts [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2189802
Comments: 18
Kudos: 100





	like real people do

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO THERE!
> 
> this fic is coming Really Fucking Late because it was supposed to be finished way back in November but School + Other Things fucked me over so !!!!
> 
> that being said: **VERY VERY VERY BELATED BIRTHDAY TO THAO, WHO THIS FIC IS FOR.** ur one of my fave people and i'm so happy to have met u and have u as a friend mwah. i hope u like this fic altho i am very sorry that it's coming late. it's probably one of the most tender things i've written so far. love you sososo much. 
> 
> before we proceed to the fic itself tho
> 
>  **a few things** :  
> \- this fic is pulled from the same universe as a persehades beomjun drabble i made a few months back. this fic can stand on its own but if you want to read the drabble for further context, click [here](https://twitter.com/altbeomjuns/status/1310738031289098240?s=20).  
> \- the myth i am basing this verse from is the original one. tl;dr: persephone wasn't kidnapped but rather had wandered into the underworld by mistake, decided to hang out there, met hades and fell in love the whole shebang. one day i might expand on this verse bc i Do have ideas on it but for now!! just know that there was no kidnapping done here.  
> \- **SOME CONTENT WARNINGS TO HEED:** mentions of war (the one between the gods and the titans). beomgyu exhibits a few signs of ptsd. discussions of scars.  
> \- title is lifted from hozier's [like real people do](https://open.spotify.com/track/4LGJ2pLDvTRnul3EcZoYkX). the original drabble was also titled after a hozier song so i thought why not, let's keep the theme going. 
> 
> this fic is unbeta-ed!!! mistakes are mine as always!!!
> 
> **if you like it, please don't hesitate to leave a comment and kudos!**
> 
> **[DISCLAIMER: TXT AS DEPICTED HERE ARE NOT MEANT TO REFLECT THE MEMBERS IN REAL LIFE WHATSOEVER. THE CHARACTERS HERE ARE PURELY FICTIONAL.]**

His new husband was hiding something.

Or maybe that wasn’t the way to phrase it. Yeonjun wasn’t even sure if Beomgyu was doing it on purpose. The god had always been a skittish creature, almost like a cornered animal that Yeonjun had to coax into being comfortable. He’d felt guilty those first few months, when they were two blushing strangers who didn’t know how to act around each other—felt like he was pushing on Beomgyu’s buttons a little too harshly. 

(It was only later that Yeonjun found out that Beomgyu had actually _liked_ how forward he’d been. He’d said it through a mouthful of orange slices, as if hoping the fruit would muffle his words. Yeonjun caught them anyway.) 

So now, he didn’t know if this was just Beomgyu being Beomgyu or if he really was keeping something from Yeonjun. And Yeonjun didn’t know how to ask. 

Things were strangely _fragile_ now that they were married. It was odd, truly, considering all they’d been through (independently and as a unit) to reach this point, but now it was almost like Yeonjun couldn’t look at his husband without feeling like he was about to catch fire. 

(He’d find himself whispering it sometimes, when he was alone. _My husband my husband my husband_. Over and over until the words were sound only.)

It was _ridiculous_. He’d ask his mother for help but Yeonjun wasn’t blind to how Demeter would still scowl at the mere mention of his husband’s name, and the thought of asking his father made him nearly bowl over with a queer combination of laughter and nausea. There were no options; Yeonjun was going to have to figure it out himself. 

It was just a question of _how_. 

There were certain tricks that Yeonjun had learned over the years (tricks he’d _had_ to learn, really) that made him adept at getting information. It was a consequence of growing up so sheltered; if Yeonjun wanted to know something he had to wheedle and hedge to get it. He’d sharpened the skill over the years until it was one of the most polished ones in his arsenal. 

But the idea of using any of those schemes on Beomgyu made unease and disgust curl up so strongly inside him that he disregarded it as soon as the thought entered his head. 

(Beomgyu would not be touched with the ways dishonesty had snaked around Yeonjun’s bones like ivy. He’d resolved to ensure it the moment he discovered how soft the underbelly of this god, so deeply feared, so deeply scorned, really was. For all the darkness Hades had wrestled with in the centuries he’d been around, his eyes had retained a luster that Yeonjun wanted very, _very_ badly to keep alive. He wouldn’t dare tarnish it.) 

In reality, he knew that the quickest way was to _ask_. Beomgyu wouldn’t begrudge him an answer. But the very act of asking was another hurdle that he had to work past. 

Simply put, Yeonjun was _shy_. 

(It was almost embarrassing, really, that this was what he stumbled on. Meekness was something he thought he’d shed, buried in the earth at the foot of his mother’s domain alongside the shell of his old name. _Kore_ was meek, was shy and more prone to hesitation. _Persephone_ had learned to take the reins in his own hands and drive the chariot himself. 

Yeonjun didn’t really feel like driving right now.)

It was that same voice that told him to just ask that yelled at him for thinking too much about something that was supposed to be so easy.

His situation wasn’t even dire. Beomgyu was as lovely as he’d always been. It was just—

“Yeonjun?” a voice called, tugging him out of his head. Yeonjun blinked. 

Beomgyu’s head was peeked in through the door of the room, his lovely, open face worried. “Are you okay?” 

_Well, his timing is certainly impeccable._

“Yes,” he said immediately. He shook himself a little, plastered on a smile for his husband. It felt a little flimsy, a little thoughtless, but it was enough to put Beomgyu at ease. “Was just thinking, that’s all.” 

“You do that a lot these days,” Beomgyu hummed, walking further into the room Yeonjun had holed himself in for the afternoon. (A study, as it turned out. Yeonjun hadn’t been the most focused when he’d traipsed into it to mull over his dilemma.) He settled himself into a chair adjacent to Yeonjun’s, turning in place to face him more fully. “Might I be privy to those thoughts of yours?” 

Yeonjun looked at him for a moment. His husband was dressed down today, a simple dark blue tunic over a cream undershirt and dark trousers. There were grass stains around his knees, a remnant of his time spent at the gardens. Yeonjun could spot a bit of dirt right under his ear, a smudge of it on the bridge of his nose. He smelled of bergamot oranges and roses and wet soil. He looked so bright Yeonjun could feel the heat of him in his chest. 

He smiled. “Maybe some other time.” 

Beomgyu nodded and didn’t push. He rolled up his sleeves, maybe to quell off some heat. (The Underworld was almost always cold, but Yeonjun’s husband was a man quick to overheat regardless, especially when he was moving.) Doing so revealed the bandages that wrapped around his arms, coiling all the way up to just before his shoulders. 

Yeonjun pursed his lips at the sight of them. They were at the very root of his problem, those bandages. 

He’d noticed them of course, way back when they’d first met. Beomgyu, seemingly, was bandaged _everywhere_. They were around his arms, they crawled up both his legs. His chest was wrapped in them too; they snaked around his torso and met at a point at the nape of his neck. 

Yeonjun never saw his husband without them. He moved about his day with them on. He wore them to bed underneath his sleep clothes. He came out of baths with a towel around his waist and the bandages already tied on. 

It hadn’t bothered him before, mostly it just made him curious. But it was different now. 

He’d brought it up precisely two times—one time before they were married and one time after. 

The first time had been an admittedly foolish and invasive move. They’d only known each other for a few weeks at most by then. But Yeonjun had been deathly curious, and he was used to asking about things that made him curious. 

He remembered how Beomgyu had flinched away as if physically hit, how regret replaced his nosiness so suddenly that it left him reeling. How apologies had rolled off his tongue immediately. 

He remembered Beomgyu’s words most vividly. He’d avoided Yeonjun’s eye as he said them, a tremor to his body and a paleness to his face that made Yeonjun want to find Chronos and beg that he rewind time, that Yeonjun might eat back his words and swallow them before they could ever occupy any space in the air. 

_“I’d rather not talk about them, if you don’t mind.”_

He’d looked so shaken as he spoke, so fragile. So unlike the picture of terror mortals and other gods liked to paint when they brought up the god of the dead. Yeonjun had nodded, agreed vehemently. When Beomgyu changed the subject, Yeonjun had gone along with it happily. 

It never became a concern after, in the ensuing chaos, their joined fight to stay together. Yeonjun had been too preoccupied with other, more important things to think too hard about the bandages that wrapped around his husband like a second skin. 

The second time had been but a few hours into their marriage, newly wed and high on the combined weight of their victory and each other’s presence. Yeonjun had rolled into their bed and waited, his heart in his throat, at the very edge of his tongue, for his husband ( _his husband_ ) to come in and join him. 

Beomgyu had emerged then, freshly bathed and already dressed for bed. Yeonjun had spied the white around his neck, around his wrists, and felt a bit of confusion mingle with his joy. They were married now, after all. He’d thought—

“Are you keeping them on?” he’d asked before he could stop himself. 

Beomgyu had paused his stride, had cocked his head to the side. “Yes,” he’d said. And that had been the end of that. 

It’d been a year and some change since then. Yeonjun had taken a trip to the surface. He came back to the arms of his husband that fall and still, the bandages remained. 

In truth, their presence didn’t bother him. Their there-ness had never been the problem. 

It was just, well. 

Yeonjun trusted Beomgyu with everything. 

He was a bit hurt at the prospect of his husband not feeling the same way. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Beomgyu asked, and ah, Yeonjun had fallen back in his head again. 

He turned, pressed a kiss to his husband’s cheek. He wiped the little dirt smudge on Beomgyu’s nose. “I’m quite sure, my love. I’ll tell you about it when I’m ready.” 

By then, he hoped that Beomgyu would also be ready. 

“And you’re telling me this because...” Soobin said, trailing off deliberately. His eyebrow was raised in a way that aggravated Yeonjun greatly. He threw a bit of mud at the man for that reason, snickering a bit when he yelped and dodged. 

“Because I need help, you decidedly unhelpful oaf,” Yeonjun snapped back. He pressed his palms against a winter-wasted tree and watched absently as it breathed back to life under his touch. “I have no idea how to approach this and I would appreciate it if you gave me some advice.” 

“Yeonjun,” Soobin started, sighing as if he was dealing with a particularly difficult child, “I am, uh, _not married_. Why would you think I’d be the best person to ask for marital advice?” 

Yeonjun scowled. He put his hands on another nearby tree, turning around to keep from looking at Soobin. “You’re practically married!” he cried, still keeping his back to the other man. “You and that Aurae, that one son of Boreas—” 

“Don’t bring up Taehyun for the love of Gaia and her children, you brat, that’s deeply unfair—” 

“The point still stands! You’re in a committed relationship! You’re planning on _proposing_ , you can help me with this at the very least.” 

He heard Soobin sigh again. He could imagine the look on his face, could see it so clearly. He always had a specific expression whenever he thought Yeonjun was being ornery. When he turned around after he was finished with the tree, he found that his suspicions were correct. 

“Have you considered asking your mother?” Soobin asked. His hands were on his hips and one of his feet was tapping a steady rhythm in the earth. Classic Soobin posture—it meant he was close to giving in. 

Yeonjun raised an eyebrow in derision. He’d been back on the surface for precisely three weeks and Demeter had already hinted at wanting him to stay permanently twenty-six times. Each time, Yeonjun had resolved to mention Beomgyu even more, and the flicker of bitterness that crossed his mother’s face every time was telling enough. 

Soobin knew the answer to his own question. He was just grasping at straws. Yeonjun watched as he finally let go of that final one. 

Soobin sighed again. “Gods, _fine_. What did you have in mind before you asked me for help?” 

Yeonjun scratched at the back of his ear, bending at the knee to revive a few stray flower bushes to avoid looking Soobin in the eye. “I thought of asking him.” 

There was a pause. Soobin raised both eyebrows in expectation. Yeonjun shrugged. 

The other man groaned. “Is that all you thought of?” 

Yeonjun shrugged again, more helpless than anything else. 

Soobin ran a hand through his hair. “Did you ever think,” he said, pausing to take a deep, very tired breath, “that the reason why you couldn’t think of anything else just might be because talking to him is the best option?” 

Yeonjun stared at him, blinking. “I knew that. That wasn’t my problem. My problem was with how I would bring it up. Were you listening to me at all?” 

Soobin pursed his lips, looking very caught. Yeonjun threw another fistful of mud at him. 

The breeze that tore through him upon his re-entry into the Underworld was as bracing as it was welcoming. Yeonjun barely shivered. He was used to it by now, found it comforting after the scorch of the summer months. He closed his eyes, inhaled deep. He could hear Cerberus in the distance, howling to signal his arrival. 

When he opened his eyes again, Beomgyu was there. He was smiling. 

“Welcome home, Persephone,” he said, and Yeonjun went to him. His moon, his heart. The very bedrock of his soul. 

They met in the middle. Yeonjun put his arms around Beomgyu’s waist and shoved his face into his husband’s neck. He took his time to breathe him in. _Bergamot oranges, old roses, the sharp starch of fresh gauze._

Yeonjun sighed.

“I’m home.” 

Soobin’s advice had been this: 

Approach the topic head-on, because there was no going around it; what mattered most was timing. 

_“It’s going to be a difficult conversation regardless of how you work up to it,”_ he’d said. _“Just, try and get it at the best time, I guess.”_

_“How will I know?”_

Soobin had scratched at the back of his neck. _“Well. I think that’s something you would know, personally.”_

Yeonjun thought about it all throughout his welcoming banquet. (Beomgyu had insisted on starting a tradition of feasts each time Yeonjun came back home. Any attempts Yeonjun made to dissuade him fell on deaf ears. (And Yeonjun’s attempts were half-hearted at most, anyway. He liked the idea of the Underworld lighting up for him, of Beomgyu being the one at the forefront of it all.)) 

Timing. 

He chewed on a bite of lamb, lost in thought. 

Timing. 

“Preoccupied?” Beomgyu asked, nudging at Yeonjun’s free hand with one of his fingers. The touch was enough to break Yeonjun’s reverie. 

“Hm?” He absently poked at a few greens that sat at the edge of his plate. “Oh, yeah, don’t worry. It’s nothing.” 

Beomgyu’s slight frown told Yeonjun that he didn’t think it was nothing. “Is it your mother again?” 

And well, yes and no. Demeter had bothered Yeonjun about staying again, near the tail-end of summer. But Yeonjun was learning to get used to it. (There was a sting, still. There might always be one, if Yeonjun was being honest with himself. There was something so deeply twisted in having a parent be the one to hurt you the most, be the one to actively try.) 

But it was useless to try and bring it up now—Demeter was unmoving. Yeonjun had never known his mother to forgive slights. She learned how to weave them into hard little knots and let them fester at the bottom of her chest, buried enough that she can work around them when necessary. They needed time. 

“Demeter is doing what she is wont to do,” Yeonjun said. “It irked me a little but it’s not what I’m thinking about, no.” 

Beomgyu’s eyebrows climbed up higher in askance. 

“Soon,” Yeonjun promised. He laid a hand on top of his husband’s, squeezed. 

It seemed to be enough for Beomgyu, who smiled and faced the crowd again. His hand squeezed back. Yeonjun picked up his goblet, hid a grin behind the guise of taking a drink. 

The minute they were alone, Beomgyu turned to him and engulfed him in a hug. Yeonjun had to reset his footing to catch him and not have them both toppling over. 

He laughed when he felt his husband nuzzle into his neck. “Missed me, I’m assuming?” He felt the god nod, felt him sigh. Yeonjun held him closer. 

The months they spent apart never got any easier, but the sweetness of their reunion was enough to chase out the remaining cold left by distance. Beomgyu was both cold and warm. Beomgyu was solid. Beomgyu was in his arms and they had _time_. 

Yeonjun had been surprised by it the most, the realization that they finally had time. Everything between him and Beomgyu at that point felt stolen, like notes passed between greedy hands. When they were married, the fact that he didn’t have to beg or borrow for a few more hours just to spend it with Beomgyu hit him so strongly it brought on a new bout of tears. 

Now, it was still a novelty. Yeonjun wondered when it would fade. 

But staring down at his husband’s face, at his smile that could move oceans and eyes like sunlight through raw honey, he felt like it never would. 

“I missed you more than words could say, I think,” Beomgyu said. His words never failed to rob Yeonjun of air. He’d always been braver with them. “Missed my husband very much.” 

Yeonjun bent down a little to kiss him, and the taste of him broke open on his tongue like ambrosia. “Missed you more. Missed you always.” He tugged Beomgyu closer, always closer. There was virtually no space between them now, but Yeonjun still tried to eliminate any infinitesimal distance. “Husband mine,” he whispered, the words catching on Beomgyu’s lips. A kiss of its own kind.

“Husband mine,” Beomgyu said back.

 _Home_ , Yeonjun’s blood sang. The feeling was almost tangible, the weight of it irrevocable. He was home. 

Beomgyu pressed a kiss to his neck, snuffled a little like a newborn bear cub. 

Yeonjun was home. 

In the end, how it happened turned out to be a lot less dramatic than Yeonjun thought it would be. 

It was two days after Yeonjun came home and they were taking a few days off from more significant responsibilities for him to fully settle back in. They were in one of the many libraries Beomgyu kept, stretched across a chaise lounge as Yeonjun read aloud from a collection of poems. Beomgyu was pressed close, his back against Yeonjun’s chest. His eyes were closed, flickering here and there. It was the minute movement that told Yeonjun that he was still awake. 

When Yeonjun finished, he closed the book, setting it down on a nearby end-table. 

Comfortable silence washed over them for a bit. 

Yeonjun shifted a little, looked at Beomgyu’s face. He pressed a kiss to Beomgyu’s forehead and watched with a smile as his nose scrunched up with the contact. 

A thought came to him then. 

_Timing._

Soobin’s face reared into his mind’s eye unbidden. _“Make sure your timing is perfect._ ”

 _Well_ , Yeonjun thought, _I don’t know if this is what he meant, but it’s worth trying_.

“Gyu-yah?” he said quietly. 

Beomgyu’s answering hum was questioning. 

“Your bandages,” Yeonjun started. There was no easy way to do this, after all; he might as well go for it. “You always have them on.” 

“I do,” Beomgyu said. His eyes were still closed. 

“May I ask why?” Yeonjun’s voice was tentative but, blessedly, steady. 

Quiet. And then Beomgyu’s eyes opened slowly. And then he spoke. 

“Is this what’s been bothering you?” he asked. He didn’t sound upset, at the very least. That gave Yeonjun the courage to nod. “Ah,” 

Beomgyu adjusted in his spot, moving until he was on his back, staring right back up at Yeonjun. He looked weirdly nervous. Yeonjun was about to take the whole thing back when Beomgyu interrupted him. 

“Well,” he said, and then cleared his throat. “You remember that there was a war, right? Way back when.” 

Yeonjun nodded. Everyone knew. It was how the world as they knew it came to be. The great titans against a new generation of deities, a mirror of the war that preceded it. Generational warfare and an unending cycle. An ouroboros closing in to bite its own tail. 

The third war, the last war (or so they say), was the greatest one, if the stories were anything to go by. It was the war Yeonjun’s father fought, the war _Beomgyu_ fought. 

Beomgyu's mouth pinched as if he’d swallowed something bitter. 

It was also the bloodiest war, Yeonjun knew. 

“I, uh,” Beomgyu started and stopped. Yeonjun grabbed one of his hands and squeezed, felt his husband squeeze back. “I was on the front lines for a lot of it, see. The fighting left a lot of scarring.” 

And that was a bit confusing. The gods didn’t scar. Yeonjun had been told it his whole life, had instances where it was proven to be true. Small cuts he’d gained over the years faded overnight and left no trace. But his husband....

“A lot of them targetted me specifically,” Beomgyu clarified, seeing the confusion that must be on Yeonjun’s face. “Cursed blades. They got Zeus and Poseidon, too, but they went after me the most.” 

Horror crawled up Yeonjun’s throat, an instinctive urge to cover Beomgyu’s body with his and protect him from things unseen. 

“Why?” he asked, his voice breaking a little. It was inconceivable to him that anyone would try to go after Beomgyu with such a vengeance. He recalled all the times he’d visited Olympus, the rare occasions his mother let him see his father. Zeus had always looked pristine, his skin unmarred and golden. He’d only seen Poseidon once, but he, too, looked untouched by carnage. 

Meanwhile, Beomgyu sat here covered in bandages. 

“They knew I was the firstborn,” Beomgyu said. He was periodically squeezing Yeonjun’s hand as if to keep himself in check. “They thought that I’d be the one to take on kingship, the figurehead they’d replace Kronos with. Nevermind that it was Zeus leading the rebellion, that it was him commanding the armies—they believed that I would take the throne. So they went after me a little more aggressively.” 

Silence. It persisted until Yeonjun felt the courage to break it.

“You said that they got Zeus and Poseidon, too.” Beomgyu nodded. “I never saw them with wrappings though.” 

“Oh,” His husband released a deep breath. “Well, we _do_ heal. You know this, I’m sure. But there’s only so much our bodies can take. They have a few scars, I’m sure, but most of them have probably vanished by now.” 

Yeonjun looked at his husband’s arms, his legs, at the sheer amount of white gauze that covered them. He dragged one of his hands, the hand that Beomgyu was holding, up to rest on the god’s chest. 

“Do they still hurt?” he asked. 

Beomgyu’s eyes widened, as if surprised by the very fact that Yeonjun thought to ask him that. “Not anymore, no,” he said. His voice was hushed. “You don’t have to worry about them being painful. It’s been centuries since they ached.” 

Yeonjun nodded, relieved.

They sat in quiet for a minute, just watching each other. It was Beomgyu who broke it. 

“I have a feeling that’s not the last of your questions,” he said, and Yeonjun could only smile, sheepish. 

“No,” he said. 

“Tell me, then.”

“It’s just that,” Yeonjun said, coughed a little to clear his throat of nerves. “You keep them on even when we’re alone together.” 

Beomgyu’s expression cleared then, something dawning on him. 

“Oh. _Oh._ Yeonjun, did you think I didn’t trust you enough to show them?”

Yeonjun couldn’t help but duck his head. Trust Beomgyu to see straight through him even with the most limited of views. 

“Husband mine, look at me,” 

He felt a hand go under his chin, raise his head until he was looking Beomgyu in the eye again. There was something fierce in the way Beomgyu was staring at him. 

“Husband mine, it was never a question of whether I trusted you enough to tell you. It was just me being, well, _me_.” 

Yeonjun stayed quiet. He had a feeling Beomgyu wasn’t done. 

“I never could find beauty in the scarring,” Beomgyu continued. He’d dropped the hand that was on Yeonjun’s face by now, putting it on top of their joined hands. “Every healer I’d gone to told me that I should try and be proud of them. All those attempts to kill me and yet I’m still here. A sign of strength and all that.

“And they’re not wrong, yeah, but I’d just—I never felt pretty when I looked in the mirror and found them staring back at me. A war-torn body. I’m proud that I survived, yes, but it had always felt—separate, I guess. I can be proud of the act and not the effects. Eventually, I was going to show you but I—” 

He closed his eyes then, tight enough that it must hurt. “I wanted to be beautiful for you for just a little bit longer.” 

Yeonjun felt his heart break along the seams at his words. Beomgyu’s eyes were still shut. 

_This man_ , he couldn’t help but think, _does he not realize just how much I love him?_

“Gyu-yah,” he said. He sounded reverent even to his own ears. He leaned down, put his mouth by Beomgyu’s temple. “You will always be beautiful to me.” 

“You don’t know that,” Beomgyu retorted, albeit weak. “You’ve never seen them. You don’t know that.” 

“But I do,” Yeonjun insisted. “Husband mine, you are _devastating_. Your soul, your heart, you yourself. You’ve always been beautiful. You always will be.” 

Beomgyu’s eyes had opened again, staring into Yeonjun’s with something akin to desperation. Like he so badly wanted to believe Yeonjun. 

“If you don’t agree with me, that’s fine,” Yeonjun hummed, giving in to the urge to settle down completely and cover Beomgyu’s body with his. “I have all the time in the world to convince you.” 

He felt more than heard Beomgyu’s breath hitch. 

“That’s right,” his husband said. He sounded awestruck. “We have the time.” 

Yeonjun hummed. He wasn’t the only one who was stumbling over that, then. “We have the time. I’ll keep reminding you until you believe me.” 

Beomgyu laughed, warm and lovely and gods Yeonjun loved him. Loved him from the very marrow of his bones. 

“All right,” he said eventually, his laughter dying down to quiet giggles. “I guess I can allow that, since you’re so persistent.” 

Yeonjun smiled, leaned in to kiss him. His husband, happily, met him half-way. 

**Author's Note:**

> hope you liked it! <3  
> writing twt: [@altbeomjuns](https://twitter.com/altbeomjuns)  
> moodboard tweet is [here](https://twitter.com/altbeomjuns/status/1354471402208862210?s=20)


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